Page 53 of Five Alarm Love
“Go ahead and get your helmet on while I watch,” Tuli said, resting the gun on his ATV seat while he poured one bucket into the other, nested the buckets, and stowed them on the back of the machine.
Keeping her movements deliberate, Lou eased the helmet on and buckled it, then mounted her ATV.Holding up her canister of bear spray, she said, “Okay.Your turn.”
Tuli’s actions mirrored hers.Once he was on his ATV, he nodded, and they both started the engines.The bear jogged toward them with a low, growling huff and stood on its back legs.Lou’s heart leaped as she gunned the throttle.
Fifteen minutes and a lot of kicked-up dust later, they crossed a few fire roads, pulled off at an overlook, and dismounted.With shaking hands, she hooked her helmet on the seat back.
“We should be good for now,” Tuli said.“You okay?”
From what?The bear or the kisses?
No.She wasn’t okay.On either front.
The Yukon River, opaque with silty water, rushed below them in the distance.Late afternoon sun slanted through the nearby trees, and poplar leaves drifted to the ground in gold flickers.
She glanced over her shoulder and reflexively flinched.Tuli held up his camera and rotated 180 degrees.
Lou resisted the deep-seated urge to avert her face.
“I got you covered.”He aimed the screen away from her.“This is too beautiful of a picture to miss sharing.”
Always the social media influencer.How many hundreds of thousands of people would see this exact moment that Lou was living?
He murmured as he rotated back to the middle of the view.A few swipes later and he stowed the phone.“Uploaded and sent.If this doesn’t make people want to visit, I don’t know what will.”
“You could send it now?”
“Sure.Check your phone.”He waited until she pulled hers out.“Enough bars from town to get the job done.”
“Oh, you’re right.Just like that?”
“Hashtags and all.This is a great place for a tourism post.”
“Noticed you didn’t get a clip of the bear.”
“That’s not good advertising!”He waved his hands in front of him.“Also, I’m not risking my life for a video.”
“Do you think all the time about social media and how many views you’ll get?”She almost tried to take back the words but held off.
“How I grow my brand and my reach?I don’t think about it all the time, but having an eye for what people want to see comes with the territory, like interacting with followers through clips and commentary and responses.”
“The way you interact with people is different than the way that I interact with people.”She blurted out, “People aren’t content.”
He whipped his head up.“You mentioned that before.I’m in agreement, by the way.”Then he tilted his head to the side, looking like the young Tuli of high school.“It’s nice to be able to use my voice for others.Boost tourism.It’s great to bring awareness and interest in the Athabascan culture.”
“Why?”
“I like helping people, and I can do it with my platform.”
“Like you helped the Steens with those land speculators?”
“The satisfying revenge at the Breakup Festival?”He grinned, all eye-twinkling devilry.“That was one of my most popular clips.That Randy dude brought the drama and caught some karma.All I had to do was record it.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to question whether one truly experienced life if they were always recording it.But she kept her mouth shut.
After a few minutes of feeling the breeze and the sunshine on her face, she sighed.“So, no more berries, then?”
“We could go somewhere else.But I wouldn’t return up the hill for another day or two.”
